There is a whole world of pain about to descend on coastal communities.? Insurance will not be available and therefore banks will not lend on mortgages and therefore no one will buy.

Insurers were told today that the first metre of sea level rise is where much of the cost and pain will hit, reports Eloise Gibson.

Local authorities all around the coast are busily drawing scary lines on their district maps and tagging LIMs as we speak.? These lines will restrict building permits being issued and reduce the saleability of properties from North Cape to Bluff. Quote.

At the Insurance Council conference at Sky City, insurers were given updated – albeit draft – estimates that say $38 billion of New Zealand?s residential and commercial buildings may be at risk of flooding if sea levels rise one metre. End quote.

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A small group of New Zealand insurance brokers affected by a lengthy loss of data services may band together to seek compensation.

Up to 21 brokers here suffered to varying degrees when a power cut knocked out SSP’s Solihull data centre in the UK, and some had staff sitting doing nothing almost three weeks.

SSP yesterday issued a statement saying it had successfully restored core services to affected New Zealand brokers, but work continued to restore document archives and some non-transactional data.

SSP’s New Zealand manager Sam Finkle said the company deeply regretted the impact on customers and it would work closely with them to get their operations back to normal as soon as possible.

He said SSP would investigate the cause of the glitch, and data for all affected UK and New Zealand customers was being restored to a more resilient storeage centre in London.

So, NZ insurance agents experienced a three week outage to their business due to circumstances beyond their control. ? Being insurance people, you would have to expect they had taken out a Business Interruption product. ? Read more »

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

AMI Insurance has been fighting a $216,413.28 repair bill since March 2009, after a house it had insured was gutted by fire when a pot of oil was left unattended on high heat.

The insurer – which acted in the name of the landlords – claimed the massive cost from the tenants, Kenji and Tieko Osaki, and won in the Tenancy Tribunal.

However, the District Court reversed the decision – which was upheld by the High Court – and ruled the Osakis were not liable.

Under commercial property law, tenants have immunity if there is inadvertent damage.

The Osakis argued the same should apply to residential tenants – and the Court of Appeal agreed.

So accidental damage caused by tenants will not make them liable. ?Somehow the owner of the building, who wasn’t there, who didn’t put the pot of oil on, who didn’t walk away from the pot of oil negligently, is responsible. ? Read more »

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

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John Campbell took crusading too far, ultimately it cost him his job as he continually pimped the poor, ran his left wing campaigns and it turns out made stuff up.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has upheld a complaint about a Campbell Live episode about unresolved Canterbury earthquake insurance claims four years on from the first earthquake.

The episode was broadcast live on the fourth anniversary of the September 4 earthquake from a Christchurch school hall, with an audience of several hundred residents who had unresolved insurance claims.

The authority upheld the Insurance Council’s complaint that the programme breached standards of balance and accuracy, because it did not include the insurance industry’s perspective and was misleading about the industry’s and the Insurance Council’s willingness to take part in the programme. ? ? Read more »

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

Sue Moroney’s only achievement in parliament is to increase the majority of every National MP she has stood against. It’s called the Moroney Effect.

She is a graceless person and stupid to boot.

Her latest outburst is against ACC changes which see levy rebates?for cars with higher safety ratings. ACC is all about safety and so this seems a sensible course of action.

Labour is accusing the Government of rewarding those with “flash” cars at the expense of older and poorer owners, with ACC levies tied to vehicles safety ratings.

The new risk-rating ACC regime, which kicks in next month, means some owners of older cars will pay $158.46 annually ? 52 per cent more than the $104.09 they would have paid without the differentiated system

Labour ACC spokeswoman Sue Moroney said more than a million owners would pay more than necessary.

“This penalises, for no proven reason, superannuitants, young people and those on modest incomes. Those with the oldest cars will collectively pay $41 million more in ACC levies, while those who can afford the latest model cars pay $41m less.

ACC Minister Nikki Kaye said the purpose was to improve safety and the regime gave incentives to have safer vehicles. ? Read more »

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

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The IRD’s Deputy Commissioner Mike Cunnington has said, “The vast majority of New Zealanders want to pay their tax and get it right. ”

This made me think. ?To some degree taxes are like an insurance policy. ?We get free medical care when we need it, yet we pay towards the medical care of others when we are healthy.

What would happen if you were allowed to opt-out of all taxation, but in return, had to shoulder the actual cost of living your life? ? Additionally, you’re not allowed into any local park without paying and all parking costs money, even on residential streets. Read more »

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

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Labour has released yet another Christchurch policy that is so totally ill thought through it is stunning to think it made its way through the Labour Party policy council.

Why bother having insurance if the taxpayer is going to bail you out. The Labour Party is bribing voters in their hundreds so they can still hide behind the fig leaf that is they are fiscally responsible.

Labour would offer to buy all?red-zoned bare land at the full 2007 rateable value.

The Government is offering to buy out uninsured properties at 50 per cent of the land value.

Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Spokesperson Ruth Dyson said the policy was not only affordable, but the “right thing to do”.

“A 100 per cent buy-out offer is the right thing to do for people who were unable to obtain insurance cover on bare-land or commercial properties before the earthquakes.”

Dyson said it would cost $23.4 million – “a drop in the ocean in the context of the rebuild”. ? Read more »

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

The Press give Labour a quiet slap around the chops for developing Christchurch policy on the hoof without thinking it through and arguing that their proposal will likely fail and thankfully only lists a dozen obvious reasons why?could go on forever otherwise. They still have a little hope that Labour can come up with something..anything that is actually a policy that someone has thought about for longer than it takes a 737 to travel between Wellington and Christchurch.

Christchurch has Megan Woods, Ruth Dyson, Clayton Cosgrove and the Mayor and between them they have come up with nothing so either big Gerry is doing a fantastic job that can’t be improved on or the Christchurch Labour party is tits.

Labour’s idea would allow claims of up to $1 million to be brought before the District Court, which has less expertise in complex commercial matters and would require expanding its jurisdiction from the present limit of $200,000.

Simply finding judges equipped to handle the work could be a problem. Labour says they would be found from among retired judges (which means they would be 72 or older) or suitably qualified senior lawyers.

The legal expertise required to provide judgments that are both swift and just, however, is not common nor cheap. Appropriately skilled lawyers may be reluctant to swap their practices for a District Court judge’s pay.

Labour also says the government would cover all costs which means that claimants would have an incentive to lodge a claim, no matter how weak it was.

There is a danger the court would soon be swamped. Impatience with the time taken to deal with claims is understandable but most are now well-advanced.

Care must be taken that any proposals for change improve the lives of those still waiting for settlement and don’t simply add complexity to an already frustrating situation.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.